Subject: Re: DHCP and static configuration

From: James Kempf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 13:24:10 -0700 (PDT)

>This appears to suck.  It means that printers (and other
>devices with SAs) have to have user interfaces.  It also
>means they have to have local, writable, persistant storage.
>

No, actually, it is exactly the opposite. Scopes must be
*configured* not *discovered*. They can be configured via
DHCP or statically. There is no need for a user interface.
That's the whole point of specifying administrative scoping
for SAs.

		jak

---

From: Terry Lambert <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 17:15:15 -0700

> That's the whole point of specifying administrative scoping

How do I configure it if I want to flush DHCP down a long
deserved toilet as an administrative nightmare, and use
stateless autoconfiguration (IPv4 or IPv6)?

The requirement for static configuration implies the need
for a UI, unless I'm permitted to have the SAs come up in
the scope "DEFAULT", or use a DA, if present, to find the
SAs intended scope.

My nominal preference would be to have a UA on board the
device that could ask "Where's my LDAPserver?" via SLP,
and get its configuration from there, perhaps using its
MAC address as part of the OID, after auto-discovering
the base DN for the LDAP server (you can do this even for
LDAPv2 servers).

Even if I had to eat the not inconsiderable cost of puting
a keypad and an LCD on the printer, the LDAP server seems
to be the correct parameter store for any device.

I don't really want or need a keypad and LCD, though. I
could, for example, define the object pointed to by my MAC
address bearing OID to be an LDAP alias pointing to "Second
Floor Engineering Printer In Far Corner".  This would let
me swap out a dead printer with identical non-dead hardware,
with no more than an alias assignment in the LDAP directory
to be up and running.  I could even automate this, with a
simple "desgnate me" service that the printer would request
if it couldn't find its configuration.

-- Terry Lambert
-- Whistle Communications, Inc., an I.B.M. Company
-- [email-masked]
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